


Hope

by Lirillith



Category: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: F/M, Friendship/Love, Saving the World
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-23
Updated: 2011-08-23
Packaged: 2017-10-23 01:48:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/244895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lirillith/pseuds/Lirillith
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Barret dreams of a quiet life, Tifa's always part of it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hope

    He came to Midgar in a rickety, rusting old truck, and the fact it broke down about five minutes after he paid the toll was about the only thing in his sight that didn't piss him off.  He was just glad he'd gotten as far as he had.  He looped the strings of his duffel bag around his gun-hand, picked up Marlene's car seat in his real hand, and started walking.  The hand he didn't have anymore was clenched tight, nails digging into the palm.  He didn't stop till he reached the Seventh Heaven, though that hadn't been the plan.

    He just stopped there because he saw a young girl with long hair arguing with some rough-looking guys and thought she might need some muscle to scare them off.  She didn't, but when she was done with them she noticed him staring.  "Come on in," she said, and he blinked, looked at the sign in the window - half-burned-out but still recognizable as a brand of beer - and then at her.  "It's okay," she said.  "No one polices these places for kids."  He was starting to want a safe place to set the car seat down for a while, so he followed her into the shack. 

    That was the old Seventh Heaven, before they helped her get set up in the place that would double as Avalanche's headquarters.  The bar was made of planks laid across a couple of empty oil drums.  "What'll it be?" she asked. 

    "I dunno.  I normally drink beer." 

    "You look like you could use something a little stronger this time."

    "Yeah, I could."

    He settled the car seat on the bar, and dropped the duffel bag with a thump.  The place had a dirt floor.  She pushed a glass with some amber-brown liquid to him and then rounded the short, improvised bar to take a seat on a stool next to him.  "Anything you want to talk about?" she asked him. 

    "Way too much." 

    He told her most of it - the fires, his wife, his hand, Dyne, the way he'd trusted Shinra.  She told him about her own hometown, pulled up the hem of her shirt to show him the angry pink scar arcing along below her ribcage.  They talked about Shinra, the city over their heads, and all the people she knew in the same boat - washed up here like driftwood after their own towns had been destroyed or sucked dry.  She changed Marlene's diaper - "I used to babysit a couple of the neighbor kids" - and offered to help him find a doctor who could give him a less risky prosthetic so he wouldn't have to worry about hurting Marlene.  She said she'd help him find a place to stay. 

    "And I gotta do something about Shinra," he said.

    "Count me in for that, too."

    "You sure?  I mean it.  I want to take them down.  It's best for the planet, it's best for the people..."

    "The same thing happened to me," she said.  "I've got nothing to lose."

    That was where Avalanche was born, and for all the fighting and death and risk that'd come of it later, that night would always be what he'd think of when he thought of a peaceful life.  Not his time with Myrna; sitting in a shack drinking with a girl he'd just met, planning to blow the sky open.  But because of those plans, they'd eventually have a world where people could live in peace, where they didn't have to worry about Shinra burning the planet away from the inside. 

    The image changed over the years.  For a year or so, he imagined a house, with sun streaming in through the windows; the two of them sitting at a kitchen table together, maybe after a Sunday breakfast or something.  He'd have a real prosthetic hand, one he could use to hug Tifa or hold a baby, and they'd have a couple of kids, a baby brother and sister for Marlene.  Eventually, though, Midgar got to him, and he just thought of the two of them together in Seventh Heaven, talking at the end of the day, after she'd closed up the bar, the way they often did.  Until Cloud came along. 

    There wasn't anything wrong with the kid, not really, except for the way Tifa turned into a different person when he was around.  That might not be Cloud's fault.  He told her that, in Mideel.  "Well, you turn into a different person when he's around, too," she said.  "You get all... macho.  It's like you're trying to compete with him."

    Probably because he was.  He couldn't stand the way Tifa followed the kid around, and the way some spiky-haired boy who didn't even care about Avalanche stole the whole show.  But they couldn't have gotten where they were without him, either.  If they managed to take down Sephiroth and save the world, it'd be because of Cloud.  Hell, he still didn't get why some rival or role model or whatever he was from Cloud's Shinra days was the key to saving the world, but he'd long since learned that taking Cloud's word for it seemed to get things done. 

    The two of them had a campfire to themselves, here in the Northern Crater.  "I know it's crazy, but I almost wish Marlene was here," she said.  "I miss her."

    "Yeah, me too."  He poked the fire with a stick.  "We'll see her soon, though.  Tifa, I been wondering."

    "Yeah?"

    "What do you think of as a peaceful life?"

    "What do you mean?"

    "Your, uh... what you see when you think of it."

    She laughed a bit.  "My first thought is you and me and Marlene in the Seventh Heaven after closing.  I mean, after that I think of being at home before my Mom died, but.... that was a long time ago.  The bar wasn't." 

    "You too, huh?"  He felt his perpetual scowl soften as she smiled.  At least she hadn't talked about a happy home with Cloud.  And if they could save the world, convincing her he was the right guy for her should be a piece of cake. 


End file.
